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200 Dreamsicles – And Not One Criminal

I attended not one, but two gun-grabber “rallies” yesterday – June 2, which the gun grabbers are trying to turn into a national event. It’s the birthday of the girl who sang at Obama’s first inauguration – and then was killed weeks later.

Killed by whom? How?

Well, that never popped up at any of the rallies.

More on that later.

The Mean, Leafy, Bucolic Streets Of Eagan: I went to the first rally at Blackhawk park – in the midst of a particularly tony,well-to-to, violence-free subdivision in Eagan,

30-odd very south-suburban looking people showed up – 8 or nine of them kids.

They did have a whole bunch of professionally-printed banners…

Although the person in charge of bringing the hot dog buns was half an hour late.

The speakers – a couple of younger, non-profit-y looking women, one of whom identified herself as the “south suburban director” for Moms Want Action, spoke. Or at least recited some anti-gun chanting points (mostly “cities that enact gun control get results!”, and “background checks would prevent suicide” and the like).

Anna Olson – I think I got the name right – the South Metro Coordinator for Moms Want Action.

“We are definitely part of a huge movement”, one of the non-profit-y-looking dreamsicle girls said to the sparse crowd.

Miss Non-Profit pointed out what a number of shooters had suspected; the orange shirt theme – which served to make everyone present look like Dreamsicles – is intentionally a play on “Blaze orange”, the hunter’s color that says “don’t shoot me”. She also noted that the Dreamsicle Festival had been endorsed by Governor Flint-Smith Dayton, Mayors Coleman and Hodges…and the mayor of Eagan.

Another man – he didn’t speak very loudly, and so I suspect his name is not “Bob Mucus”, although as God is my witness that’s what it sounded like – gave the keynote speech.

Bob…somebody or other.

Mr…er, Bob, introduced himself as a man who’d spent his life around guns; not only a hunter, but someone who was “qualified to carry a gun in the cockpit” for some reason.

He also introduced himself himself as someone who had someone in his life who had “died at the hands of a gun”. His sister – a 46 year old divorced mother of four who worked as a nurse at an inner-city hospital, was apparently shot by a gun as she was getting out of a car. He also noted two junior high classmates – one who’d been murdered, and one who’d commited suicide. Apparently both by guns that had nobody controlling them. (He also noted that “91% of people want background checks”).

I was, indeed, tempted – as, no doubt, many of you are now – to ask “so, did they ever find a perp? Did he/she have a criminal record? Did they ever ascertain a motive?” but it didn’t seem like the time of the place.

While no state legislators attended, Representative Masin’s campaign manager appeared; after introducing herself as Representative Masin’s campaign manager, in the segment of the presentation apparently reserved for legislators, she noted that she didn’t speak for Rep. Masin, whose campaign manger she was. She recited the shopworn myth that “gun violence” rates are higher in rural western states due to more suicides.

About this time, I wanted to get up and ask “So why are you having this ‘rally’ here, rather than on the North Side, Dayton’s Bluff or along University Avenue?”

But I left. I’m not going to say these people live in a world of their own – but I could have sworn I saw, sitting on a branch of a nearby tree, a grin, not attached to any sort of cat at all.

Down By The River, I…Well, You Know: Next, I drove to the mean streets of North Minneapolis.

Not an orange shirt in sight.

So I checked my phone – and found that the Dreamsicle Rally was being held at the south end of the Stone Arch Bridge. Alongside the Guthrie, the Mill City Museum, the Whitney Hotel, and blocks of upper-middle-class condos.

You count ’em. 150? 200? GOCRA turns out 2-3 times this many on a freezing January night for legislative hearings, without breaking a sweat.

I caught the end of what looked like Betsy Hodges’ speech – which was, point for point, the same speech that the non-profity-looking women in Eagan had given.

As in, they’d memorized the same chanting points from New York, down to the inflection.

Coverage. Probably the Uptake, or perhaps Moms Want Action’s own video stream. Not sure. All I know is, there’s a reason they were getting only close, tight shots.

If you follow this subject, you know that gun grabbers rarely know the subject all that well. Councilman Frey shouted “we’re not talking about taking grandpa’s hunting rifle – we’re talking about background checks – because nobody needs to unload 30 rounds before they reload!”

But that had nothing on the schizophrenia of the City Council’s resolution – which, on the one hand, had plenty of moderate-ish sounding language about the Second Amendment being a right (which drew a few boos, including from the dreamsicles I was standing next to), but on the other hand “gun violence” being a “public health issue”.

Then there was a proclamation from Governor Flint Smith Dayton declaring June 2 something or another, and declaring that the 35W bridge would be Dreamsicle Orange:

“What can we do about violence in North Minneapolis?” “Change the light-bulb filters on the 35W bridge?” “Booyah! You’re a genius!”

No word on whether the Lowry Bridge would be lit up orange, I thought as I left.

Absent: Two things the two rallies had in common?

Almost every single chanting point. Seriously – it was like they were reading off the same teleprompter.

And in no rally, ever, not once, was a perpetrator mentioned. All of the guns used in all of the violence were apparently self-animated!

You have never heard a single gun-grabber, not a single dreamsicle, refer to a murderer (with the occasional exception of Adam Lanza or Jared Loughner or the Boulder guy, who were motivated by insanity rather than being just the garden-variety criminals that commit 90% of this nation’s homicides.

20 thoughts on “200 Dreamsicles – And Not One Criminal”

Curious. Nothing on the front page of the Strib today, reporting on last night’s rallies, which were no doubt a huge success drawing hundreds of concerned citizens. Not even a closely cropped photo of the Stone Arch Bridge gathering.

First things first: I realize that responding to you is pointless: you’ve dumped and run again – no doubt because you know you can’t maintain your side of a debate.

But for the benefit of those who might not know better:

So, apparently you won’t acknowledge that we have a gun violence problem, including with those who you want us to believe are safe and reliable carriers?

It’s not that I won’t “acknowledge” it. It’s that the premise is a lie.

Example; Here in Minnesota, the homicide rate is 1.6/100,000 people. In 13 years with an average of over 120,000 permittees per year, there has one unjustifiable homicide by a carry permittee (alongside 4-5 justifiable homicides that have made it into the media); that gives you a homicide rate of about .05/100,000. I’d say “you do the math”, but I’ve seen no evidence you can; that’s a homicide rate 1/30 that of the general population. That’s perilously close to two orders of magnitude safer…

…than the general public in a state that is both one of the safest and most heavily-armed states in the union.

Sorry, DG. You have yet to cite an accurate fact on this issue. Ever.

News this week – home invasion of a couple of 80 year olds, guy with concealed carry permit fires three shots.

Let’s humor you and say that that actually happened, and there was no other context to it (and your tales are rarely found to actually happen, or to have been related accurately). OK – so what?

There are between six and ten million people with carry permits in the US. In a population that size, you’re bound to get a few bad actors.

And as I showed a few years back, if you count ever carry permittee who commits a crime, you get a violent crime rate between two and three orders of magnitude less than the general population. Against the US population? It’s two solid orders of magnitude less likely to kill.

Or the UCLA shooter, who killed his wife in MN, apparently legally bought guns and ammo here before heading out to commit a mass shooting in California?

OK – so? One person commits a bolt-from-the-blue crime. In the meantime, at least 80% of murders are committed by people with criminal records, most of whom are *not* entitled to carry guns.

Quick! Focus on the outlier! Squirrel!!!!!!!!!!

You’re wrong. There are plenty of criminals noted.

Really? What rally were you at last night? I was at two. Not a single criminal was acknowledged. Please illuminate.

What is NOT evident is that large numbers of guns are making anyone safer; quite the opposite appears to be true.

Really?

Show me the stats, NOW, that give that “appearance”. Because I can show you the opposite, right now.

You can’t, of course. But I thought I’d ask.

Just so everyone knows – you wouldn’t know a “fact” on this issue if it smacked you on the forehead.

Since blacks are far more likely than whites to be both gun crime perpetrators and gun crime victims, perhaps the GOCRA people could have a meet up with the #BLM folks? Just a thought.
They could get together and plot the best way to get guns out of the hands of law abiding, middle-aged white guys.

Mitch, so long as you keep insisting on facts and logic you are never going to understand the situation. We have laws against murder, but if we only had one more law, one that punished people for having a gun to do the murder WITH, THAT would surely deter the determined murderer.

SOECHTIG: We sent a producer out and he was from Colorado. He went to Arizona, and he was able to buy a Bushmaster and then three other pistols without a background check in a matter of four hours. And that’s perfectly legal. He wasn’t doing some sort of underground market.
. . .
And he just met someone in the parking lot of Wendy’s and bought a Bushmaster. Legally. Like, this is legal.

Except it’s not legal. Like, it’s illegal. Super duper illegal. Quadruple illegal in the case of the Soechtig employee who purchased four firearms across state lines without processing the sale through a federal firearms licensee (FFL) in his home state of Colorado.

we’re talking about background checks – because nobody needs to unload 30 rounds before they reload

Can someone, maybe someone that is an expert on “a gun violence problem” we’re supposedly having, tell me what those two things have in common?

Or are all American hating, anti-Constitutional leftists as stupid as Couric and her soon-to-be convicted felon Soechtig? (BTW, I wonder if Soechtig realizes a felony conviction puts her gun grabbing career at an end, in that when she is released from prison, she cannot legally touch a firearm ever again?) Nice catch, Bento!

I have to believe demands for a criminal investigation are being made by more than myself.

Bubba, I wondered the same thing. Lighting up the bridge, paid for, in part, with federal dollars, wasn’t free. A team of highly trained, highly paid state employees were deployed to provide a backdrop for a lobbying group, using taxpayer dollars. Isn’t there a law against that? I suggest GOCRA demand equal time with a Red\White\Blue NRA logo projected onto city hall.

Mitch, I did a bit of FACTCHECKING. Although she has her time line wrong, dg must be talking about this incident…

That member of the leftist, minority community shot two people in CA; someone that had the bad luck to have crossed his path, and himself. The people on that campus were in much greater danger of being shot by LA’s standing para-military shock troopers.

That doesn’t meet the criteria of “mass shooting”, not even by the “if it inflates the issue” criteria of America hating, anti-Constitutional gun grabbers.

It seems like when dg somehow manages to avoid mangling the English language, she always mangles the truth. Fail.

So happens I’m in town for the weekend for an annual party with my friends.

I was at 27th and Emerson last night, helping to get ready for the party today. We were reminiscing about the same day, 4 years ago when shots rang out in front…no big deal, happens all the time….but then a barrage started. Low walking to the fence, we watched, fascinated, as two wards of the state stood 5′ apart and emptied their magazines at each other. Thankfully, both were proficient enough at that range to get the job done.

Oh, if you stop by today, anytime after 3:00, I’d be happy to show you the bullet hole through a picture on the wall that appeared from outside, just above a guy’s head, during a meeting last February.

NMPLS is a Orange Shirt Free Zone…Miss Non-profit should come on up with a Expedition load for us….bring the kiddies.